In defense of Michael Vick

OPINION

He `deserves' to lose his job, but what beyond that?

August 24, 2007|By Jack Chambless, Special to the Sentinel

Now that the saga of Michael Vick is coming to a close and his days as a free man are numbered, it seems an ideal time to suggest that we take a step back. We are about to lock up the Atlanta Falcons' former quarterback for heinous acts against animals when it might make more sense to use society's scarce resources to let him walk around free -- and face society -- while looking into other acts that violate the beings we are supposed to be stewards over.

That Michael Vick "deserves" to lose his job, his endorsements and his chance of being gainfully employed by the National -- or even Canadian -- Football League is inarguable. After all, Vick has a constitutional right to pursue happiness, not a guarantee that he will be happy. If the owner of the Atlanta Falcons or all of the privately owned NFL teams decide to avoid him for the rest of his life -- thus driving his value to zero to EA Sports, Nike and other firms -- this is the appropriate price he must pay in our quasi-capitalistic economy that seeks to maximize the value of an individual for the profit of the company. Vick may never have much economic value for the rest of his life.

But what about his value as an American with constitutional rights? If we ignore, for a moment, that men make laws that are gross violations of our rights to life, liberty and private property, by all means, he broke the law. So send him to prison.

However, what seems to be perversely lost in all of the arguments that he has created is that human beings have rights under our Constitution, and animals do not. If they did, we would not see the national hypocrisy we are now witnessing in this case.

On the day Vick goes to prison, there will be people attending rodeos where animals are arguably not being treated humanely. The cowboys will not go to jail. People will look at imprisoned animals in zoos and mistreated animals in circuses, and not be arrested when they buy a ticket. Greyhounds and thoroughbreds and show horses will be forced against their will to do things they would otherwise not do. Ranchers will castrate bulls, cut off their horns and brand them with no penalty. Ducks will have grain forced down their gullets to create foie gras for restaurant patrons. I might go bass fishing, which I start by running a hook through the back of a large piece of live bait so I can hook and kill a bass that does not want to be hooked and killed.

Inasmuch as humans are allowed to own animals, we implicitly acknowledge that Messrs. Jefferson, Madison and the other Founding Fathers did not intend for human beings to be jailed for dispensing with our property in the manner in which we see fit, so long as we do not violate the rights to life, liberty and property of others. In order to guarantee that this cannot occur, would zoos, rodeos and other for-profit, animal-laden ventures be outlawed? It seems so, since no beings with "rights" can be forced to do anything against their will.

Humans, however, do have rights -- yet few in our country would be willing to apply that fact to Vick, even though he did not kill a person or deny any other human their rights to liberty or property. It would seem that the free-market penalty of his lost jobs and national humiliation is enough. Sending him to jail is simply an irrational act of revenge by a tyrannical democracy that does not regard his rights as meaningful.

Compounding the problem is that part of his prison time will be associated with gambling on dogfights. Gambling! Imagine! All of you who hate Vick, yet play poker, go to Las Vegas, the dog track, the horse track, bet on NFL games, etc. -- imagine what the Founders would say about imprisoning people for making bets on animal fights.

We need to face the facts: We are somewhat disingenuous to demand that he go to prison, when pregnant women who smoke are allowed to be free and parents who verbally abuse their children are left alone. Perhaps it would make more sense to let Vick's sentence be a lifetime of living with his conscience.